The arrival of materials

After some unexpected delays in receiving project funding, it was deposited a couple of weeks ago, and I promptly headed out with my latrine committee to buy the supplies. This week, the first deliveries arrive. Next week, construction begins. For now, I leave you with pictures and a huge, heartfelt thank you to everyone who donated to help make this project happen. I have a few busy months ahead of me, but I will do my best to keep you as updated as possible.

Community meeting to organize a work schedule and photos of the delivery:

Stove project and Panama Verde

As I wrote last February, I have been working on re-forming the Panama Verde youth group that I was ready to leave in tatters at the end of last year. I am glad I didn´t because I see that the group means something to the few young people who are involved and have been pleased by the dedication and motivation of two new members. In Febraury and March we held bake sales to raise money to help support a stove project.

PCV Michelle recently alerted us about a new model of stove, called the Bliss Burner, invented in part by Steve Bliss, a humanitarian worker based in Panama. This stove is a simple design, and an improvement on the other model I´d been considering last year. The two are compared side-by-side at the Deadwheat Foundation´s blog.

The prefered means of cooking in my community is on a three-rock stove, which basically amounts to a camp fire, which is often in someone´s kitchen, in their home. It releases incredible amounts of smoke, I usually can´t stand to be near one, and makes preparing a meal hellishly hot for the cook. The Bliss Burner burns more efficiently, releases very little smoke, and requires a lot less firewood. Its benefits are two-fold-- reducing deforestation and improving air quality, and thereby health.

I met Steve recently and wanted to get a stove built in my site and see how my Panama Verde group felt about taking this on as a project. Steve´s wife Jennifer came by this week and build a model stove at my neighbors house. It involves a 2:1 mix of clay, sand, and 1/3 bag cement. The mix is put in a mold, left for five hours, and the finished stove is ready to pop out.

It occured to me before the team got there, I didn´t have a screen to sift out the rocks. That´s okay, that is what sassy five-year-olds are for! She went at this for well over an hour before politely asking me to inspect her work. Shortly after, the team arrived with a sifter. Sorry Rosibel!

I rushed over to their house early this morning to snap a photo of the finished product, hence the grumpy faces. Julio is going to make a new surface for the stove to sit on
People have responded very positively already to the idea of these stoves. Several people came by yesterday to watch us make it. The cost to make one is very low and the benefits high. The youth group and I plan to continue make them on a house-by-house basis, charging for materials and an extra dollar or two to fundraise for a future group trip or activity.

Small-scale health promotion

As PCVs we are always thinking about new ways to acheive our goals. Get people to wash their hands more often. How to encourage them to care about water contamination. To take steps to prevent disease transmission.

Here are a couple of simple ideas I´ve been spreading around. I wish I had started sooner, because people are responding really positively. Fellow PCV Louis told me about the success he´s been having with Tippy Taps, which are hands-free hand-washing stations. They conserve water, make hand-washing convenient, and what´s more, fun! In my community, kids have been the real change agents in adopting these, but the adults are coming around too, once they saw that it costs nothing and that this method can help keep their family´s water cleaner. Current hand washing methods involve dipping a cup into a bucket of water, pouring the water over your hands and trying to wash that way, then sticking the contaminated cup back over and over. For this reason and others, most people, don´t do it so often. Here is what the tippy tap looks like:

You use the foot pedal to pull the jug forward, and the water spouts out of a small hole made a few inches beneath the cap. Rain-guard soap dish made out of sardine and tuna cans hangs to the left.

Education about hand washing is one thing. Behavior change is another. I think the Tippy Tap removes many of the barriers to action that existed before and is a great way to encourage families. And the couple of hours it takes to assemble everything allows me to sneak in a few tips and pieces of information in a non-formal environment where people are more likely to listen and engage.



I have also been working on improving the faucet-in-bucket design. Everyone stores water in buckets, and sometimes leave them untapped, or acts carelessly with regard to contaminating the water inside. Using dipping cups to get water out for drinks, plate and hand washing and other tasks makes the water dirty awfully fast. Amoebas, giardia, worms, and bacteria can thrive. I have explained to families interested in the bucket how to chlorinate their water, and then tap the bucket and only take water out of it through the faucet. People are a lot more open to chlorinating their water than when I first got here and many people have shown a lot of interest and understanding reagarding water contamination at the household level.

The more time I spend in my community, the more clout and confianza I have with the people. In recent months, I have noticed them latching on a little more willingly to my ideas and showing more initiative with regard to asking for my help. I have improved the leakage problem with the buckets by placing two small pieces of plastic between the wall and the nut that fastens the faucet in place. I am going to continue working to streamline the process before showing a community counterpart how to do it (they currently regard me as a magician). When things go poorly or are difficult, people can get negative and write things off really fast. The method needs to be quick and easy, and I want to make sure it´s just right before unveiling the tricks behind the magic show.

the face of a happy and crazed inventor

James´ visit

My brother James is a really good sport. He arrived in Las Tablas after a long day of travel and was immediately immersed into the 24-7 chaos that is Panama´s Carnaval. It is quite like Mardis Gras, but involves a lot more hoses spraying people, beauty queen parade floats, and pop-up clubs in which one is free to dance the night away. He jumped right in to the fiesta without a complaint. He met a bunch of my Peace Corps friends, all enjoying a couple of vacation days, and soaking in the sun, pushing through crowds, and subsisting on what we all lovingly call street meat.

From there, we spent a four full days in my site. He got to know the local kids really well and get a real taste of what a normal day for a PCV is like. There aren´t many people I feel like I could bring into my community and not feel worried about how they would do or view things. But James is one of those people I knew who could handle it and thrive, just like he did at Carnaval! The kids fell in love, and many of the adults told me they thought he would make a really good volunteer and asked about his availability come October, when I leave. I said our mother wouldn´t have it.

We finished our time on Bocas Island, eating bacon, burgers, and really good Indian food. I told James the only condition for his visit was that he had to write me an entry for the blog. That will be coming soon. In the mean time, here are all the pictures from his visit.